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Submission + - Windows RT isn't Windows (infoworld.com)

pcause writes: I think any developer who looked at Windows 8 and Metro knew that metro isn't Windows at all. Windows RT is the "WIndows for SRM" and it is all Metro and none of Windows. This article discusses that Microsoft's top legal eagle seems to admit this and agree.

Submission + - Pinterest doesn't qualify for DMCA Safe Harbor

pcause writes: There has been a lot of press about Pinterest and copyright infringement. Pinterest says that they are protected by the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions, but is this true? Many point to Youtube, but there is a crucial difference. With Pinterest (and Facebook too) the company's code/servers go and directly get the images off of pages that have copyright notices. There is actual work to find the images and retrieve them but that same work could easily spot the copyright notices and not provide images from copyrighted pages. Youtube received files from users and wasn't involved in actually extracting the files and hence was more like email. They did noting active to obtain the images.

Am I wrong? Isn't it like me being pointed to a copyrighted magazine by someone and cutting out the pictures and using them to publish my own magazine?

Submission + - Tools developers use (howtogeek.com)

pcause writes: This article on Howtogeek reports the results of a survey by a company called Best Vendor on the tools developers use. Interesting to look at. Hadn't heard of Best Vendor but the Best Vendor site is kind of interesting as well.

Comment Major Flaw in Google TV 2.0 (Score 4, Informative) 107

I saw this demo'ed at CES and Google made a serious mistake in capability. it turns out you can run only a small set of applications available on the market on Google TV 2.0. The reason for the limited selection is that Google TV 2.0 doesn't support touch/multi-touch. I asked the Google TV person why they weren't supporting multi-touch (at least 2 finger touch) from Bluetooth keyboards/keypads that could provide this capability and hence open up pretty much the full market to Google TV 2.0. he said the capability wasn't in the OS/libraries at all because some OEMs - he specifically mentioned Sony - couldn't support it in their devices. What an amazingly stupid decision. Build the capability into the OS and let the manufacturers with half a brain support it. Users will get most of the market apps and developers will have their lives made simpler as opposed to having yet another Android fragmentation issue to deal with. A truly stupid decision.

Facebook

Submission + - facebook is tracking you when you're logged out (geek.com)

pcause writes: According to this article and apparently confirmed by a Facebook engineer, even when you are logged out of facebook they are still tracking you. The quoted engineer explains that this tracking is only for security related purposes. Maybe, but the bigger question is does this need to be disclosed and does it violate an implied contract with web users as to what logging out means?
Privacy

Submission + - Third party cookies and web tracking

pcause writes: Most of the consumer web tracking is done by third party cookies. An ad network or ad targetting service puts cookies on your system to watch where you go and uses this ti figure out what to give you for ads and to build a profile. All of the major browsers have the ability to block third party cookies. The question is why they do't make this the default behavior, as doing so would immediately reduce unwanted tracking, especially if Flash respected this setting.
Google

Submission + - "Do no evil" - but only if it doesn't cost us $$ (wsj.com) 1

pcause writes: The WSJ reports that Larry Page knew Google was running illegal ads, but went for the money over what was legal and right. From the article — "Larry Page knew what was going on," Peter Neronha, the Rhode Island U.S. Attorney who led the probe, said in an interview. "We know it from the investigation. We simply know it from the documents we reviewed, witnesses that we interviewed, that Larry Page knew what was going on."

Google is as greedy and corrupt as anyone other big company.

Comment Re:Just a bigger and better framework (Score 4, Informative) 688

The key is that Microsoft is porting Windows to ARM. if you built you app with .Net and MS doesn't screw things up you should have an app that works on the ARM version of Windows 8. If that happens, then for MS and developers the entire .Net experience has been a HUGE win. MS will have a Win 8 ARM with a huge supply of apps and developers and developers will have access to the tablet market without having to do much new.

Comment You are giving them carte blanche (Score 1) 213

You are giving dropbox the rights to do whatever they want to with your content, according to this. All of thye examples are just that - examples. The terms give them the right to make the judgment on what they want to do. And, since they are free to change the privacy policy at will, just as they changed the TOS, you have no protections.

They can write this much more tightly to protect themselves and give you absolute control. The problem is that to do so it will be very long and "legalese" and not friendly/simple. They should protect their users and the users' intent in choosing the service and do whatever they have to do to deliver what you thought you were getting.

Submission + - Obama channels George Orwell 1

pcause writes: It seems the Obama administration thinks we need a unique ID for the Internet. Do we need this so the advertisers can better track us and invade our privacy? Or does the government want to be able to track everything we do? Of course they say it is secure and more private and not a national ID. They also say they're fixing the economy, reducing the deficit and.....

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